How To Know It When You See It: Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management

Ms. Sexton: Welcome to the new podcast series, Conservation in HD. I’m Natalie Sexton with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Human Dimensions Branch in Refuges and this series is part of an effort to put tools and resources into the hands of natural resource practitioners. It’s a collaboration with the Human Dimensions Branch and NCTC Conservation Land Management Branch. Today our podcast is, “How to Know it When You See It: Understanding the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources.” I’m here today with Aaron Mize, Deputy Refuge Manager at Bosque Del Apache Refuge. Hey Aaron!
Mr. Mize: Hi Natalie! It’s good to be here.
Ms. Sexton: So human dimensions, we all have heard it. It’s the buzz word right now, but not everybody really understands it so Aaron and I are going to talk a little bit about that and how you step it down in the field.
Mr. Mize: You know, Natalie, that’s maybe the most surprising thing to me when I talk to other refuge managers at national wildlife refuges. They don’t know what human dimensions is or even if I say HD they think I’m talking about my new tv. So it’s really unknown what human dimensions is and it’s really not a new thing in refuge management at all, but maybe integrating it into a lot of refuge management practices really is new. So I like to tell refuge managers, you’re already doing this or you have been doing it to some extent and now that you’re aware that maybe there’s a whole science behind this, you can really start to utilize that into your daily management practices to be a more effective land manager.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, I think that’s a good point. And a working definition that I’ve really latched onto is one that I’ve adapted from Dan Decker at Cornell and it’s human dimensions is how people value natural resources, how they want those resources to be managed, and how they affect or are effected by those resources and their related decisions and I think you’re right. This isn’t new.
I mean Leopold was talking about this in the 30’s when he said that what interested him most was the connection of people to each other and the connection of people to the land. But I think you’re right. It’s figuring out how do you really do this at the end of the day? If you understand it, you get it. You maybe see the value, you know, how do you really do it. I think why now? Why is there so much attention both informally and formally? You know, from my perspective it’s really about relevancy.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely and in today’s environment you can’t afford not to do human dimensions and incorporate it into your thought processes or your land management strategies; now more important than ever.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and I think that, you know, first and foremost is that there are so many social and economic aspects to just doing our habitat design and delivery. I mean we’re not doing that in a vacuum anymore. You know, if you think back to our first refuge, Pelican Island, we’re having a much more expanded vision working on much larger geographic scales and that requires that we work a lot with partners. So just to get that habitat work done there’s so many human factors that come into play and then, you know, on the other side of that is just connecting with the American public and ensuring that we are providing these resources for the benefit of future generations and that we’re continuing that conservation ethic which then obviously plays out into advocacy and political support and financial support.
Mr. Mize: I think you’re absolutely right and when I talk to other land managers it seems like some of their biggest challenges usually center around a people issue and that can be hard for us trained as biologists or land managers. A lot of us got into this career field to work with wildlife or to work with habitats and not to work with people so much so a lot of the times that does present the biggest challenge to land managers so I think incorporating human dimensions or the science of it into your land management can get you a lot further down the road.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. Well, I’m wondering if some of those listening are shaking their heads and agreeing with us but still wondering how do you really step that down? So maybe we could talk about some of those key areas where some of this stuff really plays out.
Mr. Mize: Sure. Absolutely.
Ms. Sexton: One of the first ones I think that people talk to me a lot about is stakeholder engagement and, you know, really working with those individuals or groups that have an interest in the process or in the management decision regardless of what kind of power they have and regardless of whether those impacts are positive or negative and the literature tells us that there’s some keys things that are really important to that. A few of them are empowerment, people feeling empowered, that they have a sense of trust, that they have a sense of equity and that there is an environment that promotes learning.
Mr. Mize: You know, from a refuge perspective, when I think of stakeholder engagement, I think of people who value our refuge on the landscape and different stakeholders value the refuge in different ways. We have certain visitor values at Bosque Del Apache; certainly we have consumptive and non-consumptive users. They both value the refuge completely differently from a non-consumptive standpoint of bird-watching and photography and from a consumptive standpoint of hunting and fishing so those two user groups consumptive and non-consumptive certainly have a different value set and utilize the refuge in different ways and have different needs when they’re at the refuge.
When I additionally think about stakeholders I think of people around us or within the community
that may or may not be actual visitors to the refuge but certainly we play a part in them existing with us on our landscape so I think of cultural and regional values that we try to consider in our daily management and how we piece in with that larger landscape context. Really importantly coming in with other land managers or neighboring land managers to the refuge and how do they manage their lands versus how do we manage ours and how do those pieces all fit together on the landscape so engaging all of those stakeholders differently because they have different values so understanding that and engaging them and working with them in a way that’s appropriate to their value set.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. That’s right. We’re definitely in a collaborative decision-making era. There’s no question about that. You know, some key tips that I think are good take aways for thinking about stakeholder engagement probably first and foremost is really systematically identifying who those stakeholders are. You know you ticked off several – well, hopefully you didn’t tick them off. (laughter)
Mr. Mize: I hope not.
Ms. Sexton: But you mentioned several that really figuring out who they are, what their interests are, thinking about who are you not thinking about that could come in at the eleventh hour and torpedo and then involving them early and often. You know, if we’re really waiting -- If you think about strategic habitat conservation and we’re waiting until delivery to try to influence them, that’s a decision that we made, you know, behind closed doors was a good one, we may be setting ourselves up for failure there.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely. We put ourselves behind the ball.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. And having some clear and common objectives then if we can come to those collectively that always helps. I really can’t overemphasize especially in a more formal process having skilled facilitation, you know, to think that we can effectively do that ourselves, not only are we as the managers and practitioners vested in the issue, you know, most of us don’t have – some of us do. Most of us don’t have those skills and it is a skill especially in a kind of hostile and contentious environment. Another one is making the method fit the context. Meaning I know that we typically default to public meetings where it’s a lot of one way communication and we have, you know, maybe an easel set up where we can get some comments but it’s very one way. It tends to not be a dialog so there’s so many methods that can even be adapted to a public meeting setting that can be really effective in exchanging ideas and really creating that sense of, you know, empowerment and equity that I was talking about.
You know, another one where this plays out is behavior change and, you know, trying to get some change
in individual action or thinking about an issue and I think, you know, from the social science perspective one really kind of basic piece of this that we refer to is called the cognitive hierarchy and, you know, not to get too sciencey and technical but basically imagine an inverted triangle and so at the very bottom you have values and values are really hard to change. They’re developed really early on and they cross lots of different situations. They’re really solid. They’re steady, hard to change and then as you move up those values affect your beliefs which then affect your attitudes about more specific issues and those attitudes effect your behaviors and the behaviors can change really quickly. They’re very contextual meaning that you may behave one way in one situation and another way in another situation and so, you know, when you understand that inverted triangle, the values being really solid and slow to change but behaviors being influenced I think it gives you a better perspective on how you can effect change.
Mr. Mize: You know, when I think of changing behaviors at a field level or at a national wildlife refuge I think of two kinds of changes. I think of internal or institutional changes and then I think of external or public use or public expectation changes and with that I try to stress on both of those instances that we bring our own value set to the table and we need to be aware of our own preconceptions or how we come into a behavior change type discussion and then understanding that other people have their own value set and with that said I think we as Fish and Wildlife Service employees are very passionate about the work we do. I mean we do this work because we love doing it so we bring a lot of behaviors and expectations to the table with us and sometimes some of those behavior s become engrained in our institutional way of thinking. A change to that as with change anywhere can cause frustration and lead to anger so managing through that I think is really important and something that refuge managers need to address especially on an internal level as you go through and make quite possibly necessary changes to how you do business or operations or management strategies and then changing public use expectations or changing things that are available to the public on your refuge.
Ms. Sexton: Well, all you have to do is just create a brochure, right?
Mr. Mize: Not necessarily.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, not so much.
Mr. Mize: Because information doesn’t equal change.
Ms. Sexton: Right.
Mr. Mize: Just providing somebody with the information -- sometimes there’s a lot of – as I said before, there’s a lot of expectations and emotions that come to the table and just providing information doesn’t always get us there and sometimes we really need to work through those things.
Ms. Sexton: Yeah.
Mr. Mize: So you know as we really dive into this I’m really starting to understand your sciencey, cognitive, upside down triangle hierarchy.
Ms. Sexton: Hmm.
Mr. Mize: It really does come into play.
Ms. Sexton: You sure have taught me a lot too about how you’ve actually put this stuff into action. You know related to both stakeholder engagement and behavior change there’s a really great resource that I highly recommend to ya’ll listening and that is it’s called, “The Tools of Engagement” and it’s -- Audubon was the lead on it. Fish and Wildlife Service is actually a partner as well and you can find that at Audubon.org/toolkit, some really great practical tools not only related to engagement but there’s a module in there related to influencing conservation action and what the research tells us about environmental literacy, behavior and conservation result.
Mr. Mize: So closely related to behavior change and stakeholder engagement for that matter is really strategic communication which is certainly a part of human dimensions but is in of itself a whole emerging separate science that we could talk for hours on.
Ms. Sexton: Yeah, we won’t do that though.
Mr. Mize: No, absolutely not. So when I think of strategic communication at a refuge level, you know, with verbal communication it’s thinking before you speak. Having a plan and being purposeful in your communication, whether that’s formal or informal, I think that’s always a good strategy and always keeping in mind what are you trying to convey or what are you trying to change, really having that purposeful message and I think it’s useful to tell stories. I think for generations, people have told stories and stories that relate to the people you’re talking to really help connect with specific values that an individual or a group might have that you’re speaking with and then they walk away and they remember something out of your communication.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and they’re making up their own stories so, you know, if we can use stories to influence or have them think about what we’re trying to do or where we’re headed in a different way than that can be really valuable.
Mr. Mize: Sure. Absolutely.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. In social science speak a big piece of communication is framing and framing really is the way in which you are connecting your message to something that people value and so we know values are pretty steadfast and so if we can frame our message in different ways it’s never a one size fits all message as you know well.
Mr. Mize: No, absolutely not. In the 21st century the way we communicate is even changing and I would encourage people to be strategic in how you communicate with stakeholders or the public, utilize tools such as social media or develop allies that can help speak on your behalf. A really good book that I always like to go back to is “Don’t Be Such A Scientist” by Randy Olson which really centers around us not being so sciencey when we talk to people and talking in a meaningful and purposeful way.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and I think they have a recording of Randy when he was at NCTC on the NCTC website and another one, I don’t know if you’ve seen, Aaron, is “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons and she talks about the six stories that you need to know how to tell and some tips on actually telling stories and more in that professional environment. You know, one of the last things that we want to touch on is collaborative conservation or partnerships and whether you are bought and sold on strategic habitat conservation or still have some questions I think we can all agree that some landscape level adaptive management framework is where we need to be going. We need to be planning. We need to be designing and delivering and then seeing if we’re hitting the mark or not and with all the threats that we face in the 21st century we just can’t really afford not to be doing that outside our boundaries and that really requires some skills in developing and nurturing those partnerships.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely and I think you hit on a key word there is partnership so I think the concept of collaborative conservation is probably certainly out of everything we’ve talked about today is nothing new among refuge managers across the country that we’ve all – you know, it’s been partnerships, partnerships, partnerships has been part of our mantra in managing refuges for quite a few years now and I think most refuge managers understand that refuges are just a postage stamp on the landscape and we can’t possibly be effective at conserving wildlife species as a whole without looking outside of our boundaries. Unless you’re a refuge manager in Alaska that’s managing 20 million acres or you have an endangered species on your refuge and only the last three in the world happen to be on your refuge, I don’t think there’s any way that you can say you’re conserving wildlife species as a hold just by managing your national wildlife refuge. The refuge system alone cannot successfully manage wildlife species independently of not looking at our larger landscapes.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, NCTC actually has a partners’ academy and so some of you may be interested in that class that takes place over, I believe it’s a 9 month period. It’s a distance learning course. So I would encourage you to check that out. You know, some other resources that are worth mentioning is the Human Dimensions Broadcast Series that was started in 2012, and you and I did one of those, one of the first ones, the “Social Aspects of Natural Resource Management,” and those are at distancelearning.fws.gov and they’re all archived so one of the take homes there is there’s a lot of resources out there. It’s just getting connected with them and finding some time to digest some of this and really think about, you know, what it means for you in your management context.
Mr. Mize: And I think things like that and the podcast that we’re doing today, I think that’s really helping get the message out to refuge managers that may not be familiar with the science of human dimensions but may be incorporating some of it in their work already, really helping frame the science of that, giving them additional resources to really use that in their day-to-day work so I think it’s a great thing.
Ms. Sexton: Well said, Aaron. So if you guys have any questions, can they contact you?
Mr. Mize: Absolutely. I can be reached at Aaron_Mize@fws.gov and I love to talk human dimensions and refuge management
Ms. Sexton: Great and you’re welcome to contact me too: Natalie_Sexton@fws.gov. I’d really love to hear from you on ideas and topics for more podcasts and also if you’re interested in getting updates when we have a new podcast available, please let us know. And we’re going to be doing another one pretty soon and it’s going to be on “Engaging With Urban Audiences.”
Mr. Mize: Sounds exciting!
Ms. Sexton: Yes. Thanks, Aaron. This was fun! And thank you guys for tuning in.
Mr. Mize: Okay. Thank you.

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Ms. Sexton: Welcome to the new podcast series, Conservation in HD. I’m Natalie Sexton with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Human Dimensions Branch in Refuges and this series is part of an effort to put tools and resources into the hands of natural resource practitioners. It’s a collaboration with the Human Dimensions Branch and NCTC Conservation Land Management Branch. Today our podcast is, “How to Know it When You See It: Understanding the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources.” I’m here today with Aaron Mize, Deputy Refuge Manager at Bosque Del Apache Refuge. Hey Aaron!
Mr. Mize: Hi Natalie! It’s good to be here.
Ms. Sexton: So human dimensions, we all have heard it. It’s the buzz word right now, but not everybody really understands it so Aaron and I are going to talk a little bit about that and how you step it down in the field.
Mr. Mize: You know, Natalie, that’s maybe the most surprising thing to me when I talk to other refuge managers at national wildlife refuges. They don’t know what human dimensions is or even if I say HD they think I’m talking about my new tv. So it’s really unknown what human dimensions is and it’s really not a new thing in refuge management at all, but maybe integrating it into a lot of refuge management practices really is new. So I like to tell refuge managers, you’re already doing this or you have been doing it to some extent and now that you’re aware that maybe there’s a whole science behind this, you can really start to utilize that into your daily management practices to be a more effective land manager.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, I think that’s a good point. And a working definition that I’ve really latched onto is one that I’ve adapted from Dan Decker at Cornell and it’s human dimensions is how people value natural resources, how they want those resources to be managed, and how they affect or are effected by those resources and their related decisions and I think you’re right. This isn’t new.
I mean Leopold was talking about this in the 30’s when he said that what interested him most was the connection of people to each other and the connection of people to the land. But I think you’re right. It’s figuring out how do you really do this at the end of the day? If you understand it, you get it. You maybe see the value, you know, how do you really do it. I think why now? Why is there so much attention both informally and formally? You know, from my perspective it’s really about relevancy.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely and in today’s environment you can’t afford not to do human dimensions and incorporate it into your thought processes or your land management strategies; now more important than ever.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and I think that, you know, first and foremost is that there are so many social and economic aspects to just doing our habitat design and delivery. I mean we’re not doing that in a vacuum anymore. You know, if you think back to our first refuge, Pelican Island, we’re having a much more expanded vision working on much larger geographic scales and that requires that we work a lot with partners. So just to get that habitat work done there’s so many human factors that come into play and then, you know, on the other side of that is just connecting with the American public and ensuring that we are providing these resources for the benefit of future generations and that we’re continuing that conservation ethic which then obviously plays out into advocacy and political support and financial support.
Mr. Mize: I think you’re absolutely right and when I talk to other land managers it seems like some of their biggest challenges usually center around a people issue and that can be hard for us trained as biologists or land managers. A lot of us got into this career field to work with wildlife or to work with habitats and not to work with people so much so a lot of the times that does present the biggest challenge to land managers so I think incorporating human dimensions or the science of it into your land management can get you a lot further down the road.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. Well, I’m wondering if some of those listening are shaking their heads and agreeing with us but still wondering how do you really step that down? So maybe we could talk about some of those key areas where some of this stuff really plays out.
Mr. Mize: Sure. Absolutely.
Ms. Sexton: One of the first ones I think that people talk to me a lot about is stakeholder engagement and, you know, really working with those individuals or groups that have an interest in the process or in the management decision regardless of what kind of power they have and regardless of whether those impacts are positive or negative and the literature tells us that there’s some keys things that are really important to that. A few of them are empowerment, people feeling empowered, that they have a sense of trust, that they have a sense of equity and that there is an environment that promotes learning.
Mr. Mize: You know, from a refuge perspective, when I think of stakeholder engagement, I think of people who value our refuge on the landscape and different stakeholders value the refuge in different ways. We have certain visitor values at Bosque Del Apache; certainly we have consumptive and non-consumptive users. They both value the refuge completely differently from a non-consumptive standpoint of bird-watching and photography and from a consumptive standpoint of hunting and fishing so those two user groups consumptive and non-consumptive certainly have a different value set and utilize the refuge in different ways and have different needs when they’re at the refuge.
When I additionally think about stakeholders I think of people around us or within the community
that may or may not be actual visitors to the refuge but certainly we play a part in them existing with us on our landscape so I think of cultural and regional values that we try to consider in our daily management and how we piece in with that larger landscape context. Really importantly coming in with other land managers or neighboring land managers to the refuge and how do they manage their lands versus how do we manage ours and how do those pieces all fit together on the landscape so engaging all of those stakeholders differently because they have different values so understanding that and engaging them and working with them in a way that’s appropriate to their value set.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. That’s right. We’re definitely in a collaborative decision-making era. There’s no question about that. You know, some key tips that I think are good take aways for thinking about stakeholder engagement probably first and foremost is really systematically identifying who those stakeholders are. You know you ticked off several – well, hopefully you didn’t tick them off. (laughter)
Mr. Mize: I hope not.
Ms. Sexton: But you mentioned several that really figuring out who they are, what their interests are, thinking about who are you not thinking about that could come in at the eleventh hour and torpedo and then involving them early and often. You know, if we’re really waiting -- If you think about strategic habitat conservation and we’re waiting until delivery to try to influence them, that’s a decision that we made, you know, behind closed doors was a good one, we may be setting ourselves up for failure there.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely. We put ourselves behind the ball.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. And having some clear and common objectives then if we can come to those collectively that always helps. I really can’t overemphasize especially in a more formal process having skilled facilitation, you know, to think that we can effectively do that ourselves, not only are we as the managers and practitioners vested in the issue, you know, most of us don’t have – some of us do. Most of us don’t have those skills and it is a skill especially in a kind of hostile and contentious environment. Another one is making the method fit the context. Meaning I know that we typically default to public meetings where it’s a lot of one way communication and we have, you know, maybe an easel set up where we can get some comments but it’s very one way. It tends to not be a dialog so there’s so many methods that can even be adapted to a public meeting setting that can be really effective in exchanging ideas and really creating that sense of, you know, empowerment and equity that I was talking about.
You know, another one where this plays out is behavior change and, you know, trying to get some change
in individual action or thinking about an issue and I think, you know, from the social science perspective one really kind of basic piece of this that we refer to is called the cognitive hierarchy and, you know, not to get too sciencey and technical but basically imagine an inverted triangle and so at the very bottom you have values and values are really hard to change. They’re developed really early on and they cross lots of different situations. They’re really solid. They’re steady, hard to change and then as you move up those values affect your beliefs which then affect your attitudes about more specific issues and those attitudes effect your behaviors and the behaviors can change really quickly. They’re very contextual meaning that you may behave one way in one situation and another way in another situation and so, you know, when you understand that inverted triangle, the values being really solid and slow to change but behaviors being influenced I think it gives you a better perspective on how you can effect change.
Mr. Mize: You know, when I think of changing behaviors at a field level or at a national wildlife refuge I think of two kinds of changes. I think of internal or institutional changes and then I think of external or public use or public expectation changes and with that I try to stress on both of those instances that we bring our own value set to the table and we need to be aware of our own preconceptions or how we come into a behavior change type discussion and then understanding that other people have their own value set and with that said I think we as Fish and Wildlife Service employees are very passionate about the work we do. I mean we do this work because we love doing it so we bring a lot of behaviors and expectations to the table with us and sometimes some of those behavior s become engrained in our institutional way of thinking. A change to that as with change anywhere can cause frustration and lead to anger so managing through that I think is really important and something that refuge managers need to address especially on an internal level as you go through and make quite possibly necessary changes to how you do business or operations or management strategies and then changing public use expectations or changing things that are available to the public on your refuge.
Ms. Sexton: Well, all you have to do is just create a brochure, right?
Mr. Mize: Not necessarily.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, not so much.
Mr. Mize: Because information doesn’t equal change.
Ms. Sexton: Right.
Mr. Mize: Just providing somebody with the information -- sometimes there’s a lot of – as I said before, there’s a lot of expectations and emotions that come to the table and just providing information doesn’t always get us there and sometimes we really need to work through those things.
Ms. Sexton: Yeah.
Mr. Mize: So you know as we really dive into this I’m really starting to understand your sciencey, cognitive, upside down triangle hierarchy.
Ms. Sexton: Hmm.
Mr. Mize: It really does come into play.
Ms. Sexton: You sure have taught me a lot too about how you’ve actually put this stuff into action. You know related to both stakeholder engagement and behavior change there’s a really great resource that I highly recommend to ya’ll listening and that is it’s called, “The Tools of Engagement” and it’s -- Audubon was the lead on it. Fish and Wildlife Service is actually a partner as well and you can find that at Audubon.org/toolkit, some really great practical tools not only related to engagement but there’s a module in there related to influencing conservation action and what the research tells us about environmental literacy, behavior and conservation result.
Mr. Mize: So closely related to behavior change and stakeholder engagement for that matter is really strategic communication which is certainly a part of human dimensions but is in of itself a whole emerging separate science that we could talk for hours on.
Ms. Sexton: Yeah, we won’t do that though.
Mr. Mize: No, absolutely not. So when I think of strategic communication at a refuge level, you know, with verbal communication it’s thinking before you speak. Having a plan and being purposeful in your communication, whether that’s formal or informal, I think that’s always a good strategy and always keeping in mind what are you trying to convey or what are you trying to change, really having that purposeful message and I think it’s useful to tell stories. I think for generations, people have told stories and stories that relate to the people you’re talking to really help connect with specific values that an individual or a group might have that you’re speaking with and then they walk away and they remember something out of your communication.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and they’re making up their own stories so, you know, if we can use stories to influence or have them think about what we’re trying to do or where we’re headed in a different way than that can be really valuable.
Mr. Mize: Sure. Absolutely.
Ms. Sexton: Yes. In social science speak a big piece of communication is framing and framing really is the way in which you are connecting your message to something that people value and so we know values are pretty steadfast and so if we can frame our message in different ways it’s never a one size fits all message as you know well.
Mr. Mize: No, absolutely not. In the 21st century the way we communicate is even changing and I would encourage people to be strategic in how you communicate with stakeholders or the public, utilize tools such as social media or develop allies that can help speak on your behalf. A really good book that I always like to go back to is “Don’t Be Such A Scientist” by Randy Olson which really centers around us not being so sciencey when we talk to people and talking in a meaningful and purposeful way.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, and I think they have a recording of Randy when he was at NCTC on the NCTC website and another one, I don’t know if you’ve seen, Aaron, is “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons and she talks about the six stories that you need to know how to tell and some tips on actually telling stories and more in that professional environment. You know, one of the last things that we want to touch on is collaborative conservation or partnerships and whether you are bought and sold on strategic habitat conservation or still have some questions I think we can all agree that some landscape level adaptive management framework is where we need to be going. We need to be planning. We need to be designing and delivering and then seeing if we’re hitting the mark or not and with all the threats that we face in the 21st century we just can’t really afford not to be doing that outside our boundaries and that really requires some skills in developing and nurturing those partnerships.
Mr. Mize: Absolutely and I think you hit on a key word there is partnership so I think the concept of collaborative conservation is probably certainly out of everything we’ve talked about today is nothing new among refuge managers across the country that we’ve all – you know, it’s been partnerships, partnerships, partnerships has been part of our mantra in managing refuges for quite a few years now and I think most refuge managers understand that refuges are just a postage stamp on the landscape and we can’t possibly be effective at conserving wildlife species as a whole without looking outside of our boundaries. Unless you’re a refuge manager in Alaska that’s managing 20 million acres or you have an endangered species on your refuge and only the last three in the world happen to be on your refuge, I don’t think there’s any way that you can say you’re conserving wildlife species as a hold just by managing your national wildlife refuge. The refuge system alone cannot successfully manage wildlife species independently of not looking at our larger landscapes.
Ms. Sexton: Yes, NCTC actually has a partners’ academy and so some of you may be interested in that class that takes place over, I believe it’s a 9 month period. It’s a distance learning course. So I would encourage you to check that out. You know, some other resources that are worth mentioning is the Human Dimensions Broadcast Series that was started in 2012, and you and I did one of those, one of the first ones, the “Social Aspects of Natural Resource Management,” and those are at distancelearning.fws.gov and they’re all archived so one of the take homes there is there’s a lot of resources out there. It’s just getting connected with them and finding some time to digest some of this and really think about, you know, what it means for you in your management context.
Mr. Mize: And I think things like that and the podcast that we’re doing today, I think that’s really helping get the message out to refuge managers that may not be familiar with the science of human dimensions but may be incorporating some of it in their work already, really helping frame the science of that, giving them additional resources to really use that in their day-to-day work so I think it’s a great thing.
Ms. Sexton: Well said, Aaron. So if you guys have any questions, can they contact you?
Mr. Mize: Absolutely. I can be reached at Aaron_Mize@fws.gov and I love to talk human dimensions and refuge management
Ms. Sexton: Great and you’re welcome to contact me too: Natalie_Sexton@fws.gov. I’d really love to hear from you on ideas and topics for more podcasts and also if you’re interested in getting updates when we have a new podcast available, please let us know. And we’re going to be doing another one pretty soon and it’s going to be on “Engaging With Urban Audiences.”
Mr. Mize: Sounds exciting!
Ms. Sexton: Yes. Thanks, Aaron. This was fun! And thank you guys for tuning in.
Mr. Mize: Okay. Thank you.